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Ominous Turn in Mosul Investigation; Effort to Jumpstart Peace Process

Aired December 22, 2004 - 12:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Thanks very much for joining us. Here is the "News from CNN."
It was one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. troops since the invasion of Iraq. Still unanswered a day later. What exactly caused the explosion in Mosul? We'll examine the possibilities. There's new information emerging.

Among the dozens of dead and wounded, many now in critical condition. We are live from Germany following efforts to save lives.

And what's next for U.S. troops in Iraq in the wake of the attack? We'll hear from retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark. He's just back from the region. And from retired U.S. Army Colonel Pat Lang, the former top Mideast analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

A busy hour ahead.

Up first, the ominous turn in the Mosul investigation. There are now some indications that the cause of the deadly blast was not necessarily a type of munition projected from far away, but rather something smuggled in. An FBI forensic team has arrived on the scene where 22 people were killed at that U.S. military mess hall.

CNN's Karl Penhaul begins our coverage. He is standing by with all the latest details in Baghdad -- Karl.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Wolf.

That FBI team of experts has been on the scene there at Camp Marez in Mosul since about 2:00 a.m. local time this morning. They have now been working for about 16 hours flat out to try and determine what caused this explosion at the dining facility.

We talked in the last few moments to military spokesmen up at that camp, and they said it's too early yet to come to any specific conclusion. They do hope to have something for us more concrete by the end of tonight.

What they have told us, though, is that, yes, there are still the possibilities, it's still very much open. They haven't ruled out rockets and mortars at this stage. But they also say this blast could well have been caused by what they term a placed explosion. That would mean that somebody could either have smuggled a bomb inside and left it there to detonate, or it could have been a suicide attack.

They also tell us, the military spokesmen, that what has been found so far of interest is that the shrapnel marks caused by this explosion aren't of the jagged shrapnel marks that you would expect necessarily of the explosion of a mortar or a rocket, but a lot of the shrapnel marks are perfectly symmetrical round perforations, similar to the marks that would be left by ball bearings or BBs.

Now, we have seen, even as early as yesterday, claims of responsibility for this attack on an Islamic Web site. It's always very difficult to verify the authenticity of these Web sites. But the claim does come from a group called Ansar al-Sunnah. It says that this operation was caused by a suicide bomber -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Karl, are there any indications in the aftermath of what happened in Mosul yesterday new security preparations or precautions are taking place in and around other U.S. military facilities in Iraq?

PENHAUL: Well, of course all the other U.S. military facilities around Iraq will have taken this to heart because it's not necessarily a new problem. We have been on U.S. military bases in the past, and when they know, for example, that there is the risk of an insurgent rocket or mortar attack, then they do stop troops using dining hall facilities, because typically these dining halls are soft-skinned buildings, either a thin metal or of canvas. And it's one of the few times anywhere on a U.S. military base that troops are allowed to mass in large numbers, in the hundreds, quite often.

They'll take off their flak jackets and their helmets, they'll lay their weapons on the ground. And so this is one of the most vulnerable times for soldiers. And, of course, meal times are predictable. Breakfast, lunch and dinner very predictable times.

So one would expect that U.S. military officers will be giving the orders to their troops not to congregate, perhaps to pick up their food and move on. What we have seen in Mosul specifically today, though, are that there have been sweeps through parts of the city and checks. Checks presumably for these insurgent cells that continue to carry out these attacks despite an ongoing offensive by coalition troops there in that city, the third largest city in Iraq -- Wolf.

BLITZER: CNN's Karl Penhaul reporting for us in Baghdad. Karl, thanks very much.

Let's head over to the Pentagon here in Washington. CNN's Kathleen Koch has been digging for some information there as well, as to the cause of this deadly explosion.

What are you hearing from your sources there, Kathleen?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, they are still looking at the three various options, a rocket, mortar, or indeed a bomb, such as Karl described. Increasing evidence of that what with this group on the Islamic Web site claiming responsibility, saying it was a suicide attack, and then these tiny metal perforations being found in the kitchen, the steel kitchen equipment in that tent.

But, you know, the Pentagon had been expecting that the insurgents throughout Iraq as the January 30 elections approached would try to mount just such deadly and dramatic attacks. And they had been doing more.

They have been putting more supplies in the air, fewer convoys on the road. And the convoys on the road have been taking -- changing their routes, varying them up so that they wouldn't be such predictable targets.

But again, when it comes to the bases and, say, their exposure, having Iraqis come on to the base, we are told that the U.S. military simply relies on many Iraqi force things like to serve as interpreters, janitorial work, to do construction work, and even to work in these very mess halls, cleaning and cooking. So, again, what we are hearing from those who are doing the investigating is that they are still looking at the three distinct possibilities: mortar, rocket or, again, a placed bomb.

BLITZER: Kathleen, there are other news organizations...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. THOMAS METZ, U.S. ARMY: .. in the -- in the field of munitions and explosive devices. We searched (ph) them up there, we flew them up there from here in Baghdad up to Mosul last night.

They do a very detailed explosive forensics investigation. And they will be able to tell us the type of weapon, the size of weapon, the -- all the parameters of the weapon as they do their investigation. But they are in the middle of that process now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: And it has been widely reported that the violence in the city of Mosul has been on the increase since the offensive on Falluja. A widespread belief that a lot of the insurgents who escaped from Falluja and fled in advance of that attack have set up camp in Mosul.

Now, the question being, could one of them have gained access to Camp Marez? A multinational forces spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, tells me that Iraqi workers who do work at these facilities have to show IDs in order to gain access to the base.

They are looked at. He said they are sometimes, with the emphasis on "sometimes," searched, bodily searched. But not always. And he says once they gain access to the base, they go on about their business, carrying out their jobs. And they are not always accompanied.

So, Wolf, that possibility of a bomb being placed certainly being looked at very carefully. But no -- no firm, firm decision on that yet.

Back to you. BLITZER: Kathleen, are we going to be hearing from the Pentagon brass today?

KOCH: Wolf, no word on that yet at this point. There's always the possibility that a briefing could be held, but nothing specific announced yet.

BLITZER: We will see if that happens. Other news organizations have been reporting that the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Richard Myers, will show up in the Pentagon briefing room later today. If they do, of course, we will have coverage of that.

Kathleen, thanks very much for that report.

Some of the soldiers who were wounded in Mosul will spend their Christmas in Germany. Late this morning a U.S. military transport plane arrived in a gentle snow at the massive American military base near Frankfurt.

CNN's Matthew Chance is joining us now, picking up that part of the story -- Matthew.

MATHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Wolf.

And in the bitter cold of southern Germany, we have been witnessing the painstaking transfer of between 40 and 50 of the injured from that Mosul incident from an aircraft here at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in southern Germany to ambulances and onward to the Landstuhl medical hospital, the biggest U.S. Army hospital outside the United States. Many of those injured on board the plane, which is behind me, have been taken off on stretchers. In fact, of the 50, only 13 were able to walk unassisted.

And so some of them extremely seriously injured. Eight people said to be in critical condition.

That means their injuries are so serious that they may be life- threatening and do require urgent medical attention from the specialist medical teams that are waiting for them at the Landstuhl medical facility. There, they will get the intensive care they need and the kind of specialist treatment to build up their strength so that they will be able to make the final leg of their journey back home to the United States.

Now, it's been extremely interesting to watch because there was a bit of a struggle to get the right medical teams on the ground because there was no battle under way in Iraq, there was no offensive under way, which meant that these casualties were somewhat unexpected. And because it's the holiday period, many people, many of the doctors and nurses and support staff, had been sent home to their families to be -- to be spending the sort of holiday period with them. They had to be called back in a hurry to make sure that these soldiers had the right medical teams in place when they arrived to get the treatment they needed -- Wolf. BLITZER: Any word form -- I don't know if you had a chance or if our people on the scene, Matthew, have had a chance to speak with any of these wounded soldiers who arrived at the Ramstein Air Base. Are they saying anything? Any eyewitness accounts of what they believe happened, the cause of the explosion in Mosul yesterday?

CHANCE: Well, this, of course, is the big question. And of course we are all pushing hard to speak to as many of these patients as we possibly can when they are fit to do so.

At the moment, we are working very much under the restrictions of the U.S. military. They're not permitting us at this stage even to show the faces of the injured who walked off or were carried off this aircraft behind me. They certainly at this stage not clearing any of those individuals to actually talk to the media.

But we'll be here for the next few days. We are pushing to speak to those eyewitnesses obviously to this devastating attack in Mosul, to perhaps try and bring us a bit more clarity about exactly what happened from their points of view. So, in short, no, we haven't had a chance to speak to them yet, but we are trying to do that.

BLITZER: All right. Matthew Chance on the scene for us at the Ramstein Air Base. And these wounded soldiers will be heading over to the Landstuhl hospital.

Let's go to our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. She's in Kuwait City. She has been gathering information from her vantage point on what she has heard, perhaps.

Barbara, do you have anything new on what may have caused this explosion?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, let me just clarify very quickly. Actually, right now at this hour, I am on board the Harry Truman aircraft carrier in the northern Persian Gulf.

We flew out to the carrier early this morning. We're having a trip through the region to look at the security situation for U.S. forces across this central command area.

But when we left Kuwait City very early this morning from a remote airfield there, it was a quiet, sad moment. As we were at the airfield, a C-130 aircraft from Iraq landed at the airfield. The back of the plane opened up, and an honor guard, two lines of troops, approached the rear of the plane and very quietly, very reverently began taking the body bags off the plane, the human remains from the attack in Mosul.

This was a very unique opportunity because, as you know, Wolf, there -- media is not allowed to cover or film the return of remains from the war. And indeed, we could not take our camera out. But we were given permission there to very quietly stand at a distance and watch this honor guard.

There was no one else at the airfield, and yet these troops gave these remains every honor. There was a quiet funeral salute as the body bags came off the plane as they were loaded into vehicles and then taken to another location on the Kuwait airfield for mortuary affairs, of course, before they make their final journey home back to the United States.

Out here in the Persian Gulf, this attack in Mosul is the topic of conversation amongst all the troops. The troops want to know what happened, how this attack happened. There is, at least, an inclination amongst the troops, Wolf, that it must have been a deliberate attack, something very -- pardon me -- well-planned, not just a lucky shot, if you will -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Barbara Starr. Barbara, thanks very much for that report.

Barbara is traveling through the region. She's on the aircraft carrier Harry Truman right now. We'll be checking back with her throughout the day.

Have a safe journey over there, Barbara. Appreciate your coverage.

Whatever device caused yesterday's explosion, it was one of the deadliest single attacks on U.S. forces since the invasion of Iraq some 20 months ago. Joining us now with some perspective, retired U.S. Army Colonel Pat Lang. He served over at the Pentagon as the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency's top Middle East analyst until he retired.

Thanks very much, Pat, once again for joining us.

COL. PAT LANG, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Sure.

BLITZER: It's speculative, there's an FBI forensics team on the scene. But what goes through your gut as you are piecing together all this fragmentary information?

LANG: Well, I'll tell you what I don't want to find out it was. I don't want to find out that someone was able to carry that much explosive through the various levels of personnel security in that camp in order to place it or carry it on their person in that mess hall to set it up. Because if that's true, then, in fact, our -- the security in that place and maybe in other places in Iraq is so bad that it amounts, in fact, to negligence. That should never happen, in fact.

BLITZER: So if it were a suicide bomber, with a knapsack, or whatever, and had the pellets and the ball bearings, which is a trademark of suicide bombers, if that were the case, if a suicide bomber with all those explosives could get through, that would be a bigger concern to you than if it was rocket that had been directed towards that mess hall?

LANG: Yes, absolutely. I mean, stand-off attacks by mortars and rocket fire are standard things you have to expect in an insurgency situation like this. All they need is the weapon, a modicum of information, knowledge, how -- the distance and the direction, and they can always shoot these things in at you. And most of the time they're not going to hit anything very significant.

They did this to us all the time in Vietnam. But if, on the other hand, in fact, they are able to walk through our security in this way and place a charge in the mess hall, then, in fact, you have to understand that the idea that there's just a handful of holdouts from the old regime who are doing this must be wrong.

There has to be a significant support base among the population, amongst the Sunni Arabs. And that's real bad.

BLITZER: You made the reference to Vietnam now. But I've heard a lot of analysts both in and out of government in recent days, especially yesterday and today, suggest to me that the analogy, the parallels to what happened to the U.S. forces in Lebanon in the early '80s, '81, '82, '83, that there may be greater parallels to what's happened -- what's happening in Iraq now to what happened to the United States forces in Lebanon.

LANG: Well, in a combat situation, I think there are a lot of parallels in some ways, both to Vietnam and Algeria. But at the political level, I think you're exactly correct.

In fact, in Lebanon, we, and the French as well, as you will recall, were lulled into thinking that this was a much more benevolent situation, that a great many more people were on our side than there actually were, and that you didn't need to be quite so hard-nosed about this. As result, when the Marines were attacked in their barracks by a suicide bomber in a truck, they didn't shoot this guy when they should have when he was far enough outside the perimeter.

And that -- and there's a similarity here, if, in fact, this is somebody who carried this bomb in. We can't be telling our troops that this is a benign environment, because it isn't.

BLITZER: And the notion of -- you know who was responsible for killing those 241 Marines in 1983...

LANG: I do.

BLITZER: ... at the barracks outside of Beirut. Who was responsible for that?

LANG: Well, ultimately, it was, in fact, the Iranian government, because what they did is they used the organization of Hezbollah, the Shia activist terrorist group in Lebanon, to recruit out of this a team of guys who worked for Iranian intelligence. And they used them to attack the Marine barracks as a part of Iranian foreign policy.

Now, the Iranians are certainly very active in Iraq. On the balance, I would say this right now is probably -- are probably Sunni guerrillas who are fighting the resistance because they are afraid they are going to be disenfranchised by the government.

BLITZER: But the broader lesson that they learned from that experience in Lebanon, in the United States it was the Reagan administration at that time, went in with grand ambitions, democracy, elections, a new government, bringing together the Christians, the Sunni Muslims, the Shiite Muslims, the Kurds in Lebanon. There would be a new Lebanon which would represent great hope for democracy throughout the region. That was the ambition, but shortly after those Marines were killed in that suicide truck attack the Reagan administration, President Reagan, then pulled out.

LANG: Well, a realization was come to in that situation, in fact, that we had probably bit off more than we could chew politically. And that the idea of restructuring Lebanon into a family of happy campers was probably not something we could achieve at any price we were willing to pay.

And in this case we've decided to reverse the social order in Iraq so that the Shia, who have always been looked upon by the Sunnis as a despised minority, are obviously going to be in charge. And to some extent, we made a similar kind of political creation here.

BLITZER: Is there good intelligence based on -- you spent your whole career on intelligence in the military, the civilian sector of the Pentagon. Do you think the United States at this point has good intelligence on the nature of this insurgency, who's behind it, how they operate, where they are, what's going on, the funding? Do you believe they have good information on this?

LANG: It has been gradually emerging over the last year as the professionals in military intelligence and the CIA have been allowed to develop networks of informants in these things. So now the information is actually pretty good, it's pretty well understood by the professionals. The question whether or not the command will accept that based on the guidance they've received from Washington as to how we want the future to be in Iraq is another question altogether.

BLITZER: Pat Lang, formerly of the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Thanks very much for joining us.

LANG: Sure.

BLITZER: Around the time that the wounded troops were arriving at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany -- in Germany, veterans and family members gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial here in Washington to offer some holiday wishes to the U.S. troops in Iraq. Here is a small sampling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "There are no words I could ever write to let you know what I feel in my heart for you all. You humble me with the sacrifices you have made. God bless you and keep you throughout eternity. And I hope all our guys come home, and our women."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "To all who have served or will serve, you will not be forgotten." I'd just like to add that I'm an OIF veteran. I'll be going back next week to finish the mission. And I want to extend my thoughts and prayers to my comrades who are over there now, and all the soldiers, especially the ones in Mosul yesterday, and pray that all our guys come home safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And we'll have more on the unstable situation in the region in the Middle East. That's coming up. The retired U.S. Army general, Wesley Clark, he's the former NATO supreme allied commander and former Democratic presidential candidate. He has just returned from the region. He will offer some broader perspective on what is going on when we come back.

Also, a bit later, just in time for Christmas, a winter blast for America's heartland.

You're watching the "News from CNN."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. The British prime minister, Tony Blair, is in Jerusalem today. He has been meeting with Israeli officials, Palestinian leaders.

CNN's John Vause standing by in Jerusalem with the latest on the effort trying to jump-start the peace process.

John, what's going on?

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Tony Blair has now met with both Palestinian and the Israeli authorities, the prime minister from Israel, Ariel Sharon, as well as the man who is likely to be the next president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. But before those meetings got under way, Tony Blair visited the grave of the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. And chances are, if Arafat were still alive today, then none of this would be happening now.

Mr. Blair is proposing an international summit next year in London which will focus solely on Palestinian reforms, reforming their political institutions, their economy, their security service as well. Now, the other big factor in all of this, Wolf, is Israel's plan to pull out Jewish settlers and troops from all of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

Mr. Blair says it is crucial that the Palestinians are ready to become a viable partner for peace the day after disengagement. Although the Palestinians were hoping for a lot more from that international summit. They wanted it to tackle the whole issue of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

They didn't get that, still putting a positive spin on in this international summit, saying they're hoping it can lead back to the stalled U.S.-backed roadmap peace plan. That is what Ariel Sharon was also saying, the Israeli prime minister, when he met with Tony Blair earlier today. But both Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and British Prime Minister Blair making it perfectly clear that there will be no negotiated peace here until there is an end to the terrorist attacks on Israelis -- Wolf.

BLITZER: John, is there a sense that these Palestinian elections on January 9, scheduled for January 9, that everything is in place, the easing of the roadblocks, the opportunity for Palestinians to show up at voting booths, the opportunity for international monitors to come in and make sure that everything is going along OK? Are all the elements falling into place?

VAUSE: Very much so, Wolf. The Israelis announced a few days ago that they are willing to pull out of Palestinian towns and cities the day before the elections, the day of the elections and the day after the elections.

As you mentioned, the monitors, the international monitors, will be here. But in many ways, this election seems like more of a formality, or a coronation, if you like.

It seems that Mahmoud Abbas is the one and only real candidate in all of this. So, while the elections are in place, everything looks like it will be set for a smooth run, it looks as though Mahmoud Abbas is the man who will simply walk away with this election January 9 -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And he's someone the Israelis certainly say they can deal with. The U.S. says they can deal with him. The British prime minister, Tony Blair, is in the region. So let's see what happens.

John Vause reporting for us from Jerusalem.

John, thanks very much. Good luck with the coverage coming up in connection with these elections.

We'll take a quick break. When we come back, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark. He's standing by. We'll get his thoughts on what's happening in Iraq and the region. He's just back from the region.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Will the war in Iraq affect the president's domestic agenda? We'll talk about that and more with my guests, Amy Goodman of democracynow.org and Pacifica Radio, and the syndicated columnist and radio talk show host, Armstrong Williams. They're standing by as well.

The "News from CNN" will return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: You are looking at a live picture, a very happy picture from France. Two French journalists held hostage in Iraq since August, returning to their homeland, their country, France, this hour. These are live pictures. They're arriving at a military airport just outside Paris, barely 24 hours since being released. Their names, Christian Cheneau (ph) of Radio France International and George Mubreneau (ph), of "Le Figero (ph) newspaper. They were held in Iraq for four full months by a group that is known to have killed other hostages. French government said it made no concessions to gain their freedom, but the reason they were released isn't clear.

Congratulations to them. Very happy news for them.

Let's go to Little Rock, Arkansas. The former Democratic presidential candidate, the former NATO Supreme Allies commander, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark joining us.

Now you're just back from the region, General Clark.

Where were you, and what's your bottom-line assessment of what the mood is right now?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, I was in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, there's a lot of anti- American sentiment over there, a lot of anger at the way the war in Iraq is being conducted, the way it's going, blaming the United States for not dealing with the tribal situation, excessive use of violence and so forth, and there's a kind of a resigned sense of pessimism about what the outcome will be.

BLITZER: Well, what do they want the United States to do given the situation as it currently exists in the conversations you had, and all of those countries basically friendly. I think we can almost call them allies or supporters of the U.S. What do they want from the Bush administration right now, based on your conversations?

CLARK: Well, they're ambivalent about what they want. The real issue is the future of the Arab Gulf, as they call it, and Iran's pretensions for nuclear weapons. And whether the administration is going to be able to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and if it doesn't stop Iran, then what will be the consequences for them. They view Iraq as already lost in a sense that whatever emerges up there is going to be dominated by the Shiite community. It's only a question of how much violence. And they're concerned about the impact of the Shiite domination in conjunction with an Iran that's possibly equipped with nuclear weapons on what their security and their alignment will be in the future.

They're also concerned...

BLITZER: Do you think, General Clark, the United States should simply cut and run right now, pull out, declare mission over, and come home? Along the lines that we were talking earlier with Pat Lang, formerly of the DIA, and I asked him if there was a parallel to what happened in Beirut and Lebanon in the early '80s, when then-President Reagan, after the Marine barracks were blown up, shortly thereafter, they left.

CLARK: No, what we've got do, is we've got to stay engaged, we've got to keep our troop there. We've got to get through the election. We've got to try to help the Iraqis put together a government, help the Sunnis participate in it, and through our presence there work to ensure that Iraq stays together and mollifies whatever radical tendency may emerge from Iranian influences inside Iraq.

But the issue of Iran is a separate issue that the administration must be wrestling with now behind closed doors. We're not getting any visibility of it much here in the United States. There's a lot of concern about it that I detected in the Gulf.

BLITZER: Well, I'll get to Iran in a minute, but basically the strategy that you outlined from what the U.S. has to do now, given the situation as it currently exists, basically that sounds very much like what the Bush administration says it must do -- get these elections going, try to get a new government going, create a new constitution, try to bring as many groups into the process -- Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds -- as possible. It sounds very much like what the administration is trying to do.

CLARK: I think that's exactly right.

One thing I would add that the administration has not done yet, that I would like to see them do, is bring together a regional conference of Iran, Syria, Turkey, Kuwait, the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, all of the neighbors, and work with them to get them as much as possible in the boat to try and stabilize and Democratize Iraq. If the administration would do that, they would diffuse some of the hostility, because we know the insurgency is being fed through Syria, and to a lesser extent through Iran, and Saudi Arabia. We know that because of the concerns that these states have about the future of Iraq. So, we need to diffuse that outside support, and we can do that, I think, by using a little diplomacy. The administration hasn't done this yet.

BLITZER: From what I can hear you say, General Clark, it sounds like you have returned back to the United States deeply concerned about what is happening in Iran. Is that largely what you suspect is Iran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb?

CLARK: Well, I'm concerned -- yes, it is, Wolf. I'm concerned that, first, there is really no one in the region -- and these are people who are government officials and high-level business leaders -- who have contact with Iran all the time. Everybody believes Iran is going for a nuclear capability, and a weapon if they can get it. Why? Because it gives them a sense of security, and it will give them domination.

The impact of that is going to be to further radicalize the Saudis and put greater stress on the government in Saudi Arabia, and it's going to put greater pressure, obviously, on these Gulf states. And so they're very concerned about this, and what the United States might or might not do about it.

BLITZER: So what should the Bush administration be doing right now in your opinion?

CLARK: Well, I think we ought to be doing everything we can do diplomatically to forestall Iranian nuclear capabilities, and that means joining with our European partners in talking with the Iranians, looking not only for negative incentives, but some positive inducements to help them make the decision to give up on getting a nuclear capability.

BLITZER: The Iranians say they -- and I spoke to the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations this past Sunday, they say they're doing all that right now, that they've cooperated with the French, the Germans, the British, in terms of that initiative, that they're cooperating with Mohammed El-Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, they're not going forward with a nuclear bomb, and they insist that's that.

CLARK: Well, first of all, their cooperation is temporary, because they're still waiting for more results coming back from the Europeans.

But secondly, we're not sure who the Iranians represent that are doing the speaking. Do they represent the military? Do they represent the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps? Or do they just the represent the civil society in Iran? We're not sure that we got all the bases covered in there. And so there's a little bit of uncertainty about whether, in fact, the government of Iran's pledge means as much as it say it does. And there's also the fact that it's a temporary cessation of efforts to enrich uranium. And so nobody in the Gulf believes that this is the end of the story right now.

BLITZER: One final question, General Clark, before I let you go. What happened yesterday in Mosul and these large number of U.S. troops killed and injured. You served in Vietnam, you were injured in Vietnam. You know the kind of war that the U.S. forces and their allies are fighting in Iraq right now. What can -- what should the Pentagon leadership be doing right now to help strengthen their security?

CLARK: Well, obviously, they're going to have to go back and look at the security procedures at the camps, at every single camp. And if it was a planted bomb, then we know how to tighten up the security there and handle that. If it was an unerringly accurate shot by a rocket, then that's a different technical matter. But we know how to tighten up security. We'll just have to do that.

But I think the other thing that we've got to do is we've got to get our U.S. troops out and into the police stations and out into reinforce the Iraqi security forces. There's a little bit of that going on. A lot more needs to be done. We need to help those Iraqi security forces take up the burden of providing security and safety in the urban areas.

BLITZER: Do you want Donald Rumsfeld to resign as secretary of defense?

CLARK: Well, I've never called on that. You know, he's -- Secretary Rumsfeld's made some serious misjudgments. I think he's been disrespectful of the troops and frankly, I was shocked by what he said to the soldiers questioning about the lack of armor. I mean, that should have all been nailed down, it should have been corrected months and months and months ago. But ultimately, this is President Bush's policy. And Donald Rumsfeld is executing it.

BLITZER: Wesley Clark, retired U.S. army general. Thanks very much for joining us.

CLARK: Thank you.

BLITZER: We'll take a quick break. When we come back, our hot topics debate. Armstrong Williams, Amy Goodman. They're standing by. They disagree on almost everything. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to the news from CNN. The high cost of war hitting -- hit home today. Dozens of wounded American troops are now at a U.S. military hospital in Germany, while here at home prayers for those killed in yesterday's attack in Mosul continuing even as we speak right now.

Joining us now with their thoughts on what's going on, two guests. Radio talk show host and syndicated columnist, Armstrong Williams. And Amy Goodman, she's the host of the radio TV program "Democracy Now," joining us from New York. Thanks to both of you for joining us.

Armstrong Williams, it looks like this situation in Iraq continues to get worse and worse every day.

ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: It is worse. It's sad. It's reached an all-time low. I mean, what happened recently in Mosul was devastating, particularly to families who don't know whether it was their loved one and then there were many that were injured. It's a high cost for what we're trying to do in Iraq.

And obviously, this president and his military has to do something to protect our men and women who are serving there. But it's certainly not a reason to pull out. The United States have made a commitment. As General Wesley Clark just said, we must stay the course. Sad there will be many more lives lost, and I think it's all leading up to the elections, which we could have armageddon before it ever takes place.

BLITZER: Amy, you think the U.S. should cut and run or stay put?

AMY GOODMAN, HOST, "DEMOCRACY NOW": I mean, we're talking about a desperate situation right now. While the troops are in Iraq, they're not being protected, and then you had -- they said there were something like 30 attacks on this Mosul base, and yet still here are these people who were really -- the soldiers were sitting ducks in an open tent. It goes to the incompetence, not of the soldiers on the ground, but right up the chain of command, why they're not being protected, from national guard with their humvees not being protected right here, to the tent.

But it's much larger than this. I mean, the number of soldiers who've been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have now surpassed 1,500 wounded and injured. We're talking over 17,000 soldiers have been medevaced out, flown out of Iraq. It's not numbers the Pentagon talks about very much. But these solders are not being protected. And of course, the Iraqi people are dying.

BLITZER: In terms of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, it's over 1,300.

GOODMAN: But 1,500 in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Well, I think you'll agree, Amy -- maybe you won't -- that the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are different.

GOODMAN: I'm talking about the number of soldiers who have died. But I would say, yes, in Iraq it's over 1,300. And it is a very desperate situation, because as President Bush says, he is trying to bring democracy to the people of Iraq. I mean, just look at the example of Falluja. As we know from the Vietnam time, destroying the village in order to save it. The people seeing what has taken place there. Is this really helping the people of Iraq?

BLITZER: Armstrong, is that a fair comparison?

WILLIAMS: No, but it is a comparison -- you know, many people are angry and upset about this war because they still don't feel that we belong there. Obviously, President Bush was re-elected because the American people wanted him to complete this mission. I think the bull's eye is on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

I think the president is correct in keeping him on board, especially given these elections that are upon us, but something has to be done. I'm certainly not advocating that the president gives him an early retirement, because I think he's done a lot of good, but something has to be done because if this situation worsens, I don't know how much of an appetite the American people will have for this.

BLITZER: What's your recommendation, Amy? What do you think needs to be done in Iraq right now, given the situation as it currently stands?

GOODMAN: I mean, the United States should never have never invaded Iraq.

BLITZER: All right. We know. But what about now?

GOODMAN: And at this point, I think that the U.S. clearly -- U.S. soldiers on the ground are only a provocation at this point. Iraq needs to be in control of its own destiny. We need a world community that is not increasingly angered by the United States. A world community coming to help Iraq, led by...

BLITZER: So what should the U.S. do?

GOODMAN: ... Iraqis who are elected by the people of Iraq, not appointed, like people like Ayad Allawi, the unelected prime minister of Iraq.

BLITZER: So what do you want the U.S. to do? Let me ask you that again.

GOODMAN: I mean, the United States needs to leave Iraq. And the United States needs to leave Iraq now because the casualties are Iraqi and the casualties are U.S., but the U.S. on the ground in Iraq is only making matters worse.

BLITZER: You know, Armstrong, a lot of people out there, a lot of Americans agree with her. If you look at the public opinion polls, they're not sure it's worth it for more American soldiers to die for a mission whose purpose is unclear to them right now.

WILLIAMS: You know, I think the agenda of the United States and the purpose that we have in mind is certainly not the agenda of the people in Iraq. I think we underestimated these insurgents, I think the president finally acknowledged the kind of influence and the kind of power that they have there. We can talk about somebody having a backpack in Mosul that detonated, but it looks like a rocket that caused that kind of damage. .

BLITZER: We don't know what is was yet.

WILLIAMS: We just don't what it was. And I just think it's something that we have to examine. I'm -- as you know, I used to be gung-ho about this war, but as I continue to see the death toll and the fact that our men are sitting ducks, I mean, we have to examine our policies and we have come to the conclusions that are in the best interests of the United States in the long run.

GOODMAN: The American ...

BLITZER: So you're beginning to have serious doubts. Go ahead, Amy.

GOODMAN: The American people are coming to strong conclusions. The latest ABC News/"Washington Post" poll says 60 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with what Bush is doing in Iraq. The popularity of Rumsfeld has plummeted to 35 percent. And we can't say enough about how bad the situation is when it comes to U.S. soldiers, military contractors, CIA, Pentagon involved in the torture of prisoners.

WILLIAMS: There's something we forget that is equally important -- far too many Iraqis have lost their lives than Americans. They're paying the ultimate price. And there are many Iraqis, including Mr. Allawi and others, who want America there. They want them to stick by them. They do not want them to abandon the cause there. And to leave them in a situation like that, which is just the worst thing that we could do in our reputation abroad.

So it's a tough situation, because the president has some very tough decisions to make over the next few weeks.

GOODMAN: I mean that runs counter to what people are saying on the ground in Iraq. I mean, you're talking about a cross-section of Iraqi society that wants U.S. soldiers out. This is a very desperate situation. The figures at the Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Baghdad University study suggesting that more than 100,000 Iraqis have died with the invasion and occupation. You are talking about a population that may not agree on many points, but on the issue of the U.S. getting out, I think we are talking about most people, maybe not those chosen by the U.S. government, by the Bush administration, but by most Iraqis wanting the U.S. out.

BLITZER: Very quickly.

WILLIAMS: I think that's an unfair comment. I think there are many Iraqis, I mean, not just those in the leadership, that wants the United States to stay, but as they begin to see the toll that it's taking on their country, they begin to wonder if it's worth it in the long run.

BLITZER: All right. Armstrong Williams, Amy Goodman, good discussion. Thanks very much to both of you for joining us.

GOODMAN: Thank you, Wolf.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

BLITZER: And coming up at the top of the hour, more on yesterday's bombing in Mosul. Up next, a winter wonderland here in the American heartland. Will it make for a white Christmas, though? We'll tell you about that when the NEWS FROM CNN continues.

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BLITZER: Welcome back. Just in time for the holidays a monster winter storm is socking the Midwest.

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BLITZER: I'll be back later today, every weekday, 5:00 p.m. Eastern for "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS." We'll have more on the Mosul investigation, plus we'll also focus in on homeland security. More money for the nation's largest cities -- How much of a difference will it make? Admiral David Stone, the assistant secretary of homeland security, he'll join us live. Until then, thanks very much for watching the NEWS FROM CNN.

I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "LIVE FROM" with Kyra Phillips and Miles O'Brien -- there they are -- they're getting ready. They're standing by to join us next.

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TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

Aired December 22, 2004 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Thanks very much for joining us. Here is the "News from CNN."
It was one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. troops since the invasion of Iraq. Still unanswered a day later. What exactly caused the explosion in Mosul? We'll examine the possibilities. There's new information emerging.

Among the dozens of dead and wounded, many now in critical condition. We are live from Germany following efforts to save lives.

And what's next for U.S. troops in Iraq in the wake of the attack? We'll hear from retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark. He's just back from the region. And from retired U.S. Army Colonel Pat Lang, the former top Mideast analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

A busy hour ahead.

Up first, the ominous turn in the Mosul investigation. There are now some indications that the cause of the deadly blast was not necessarily a type of munition projected from far away, but rather something smuggled in. An FBI forensic team has arrived on the scene where 22 people were killed at that U.S. military mess hall.

CNN's Karl Penhaul begins our coverage. He is standing by with all the latest details in Baghdad -- Karl.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Wolf.

That FBI team of experts has been on the scene there at Camp Marez in Mosul since about 2:00 a.m. local time this morning. They have now been working for about 16 hours flat out to try and determine what caused this explosion at the dining facility.

We talked in the last few moments to military spokesmen up at that camp, and they said it's too early yet to come to any specific conclusion. They do hope to have something for us more concrete by the end of tonight.

What they have told us, though, is that, yes, there are still the possibilities, it's still very much open. They haven't ruled out rockets and mortars at this stage. But they also say this blast could well have been caused by what they term a placed explosion. That would mean that somebody could either have smuggled a bomb inside and left it there to detonate, or it could have been a suicide attack.

They also tell us, the military spokesmen, that what has been found so far of interest is that the shrapnel marks caused by this explosion aren't of the jagged shrapnel marks that you would expect necessarily of the explosion of a mortar or a rocket, but a lot of the shrapnel marks are perfectly symmetrical round perforations, similar to the marks that would be left by ball bearings or BBs.

Now, we have seen, even as early as yesterday, claims of responsibility for this attack on an Islamic Web site. It's always very difficult to verify the authenticity of these Web sites. But the claim does come from a group called Ansar al-Sunnah. It says that this operation was caused by a suicide bomber -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Karl, are there any indications in the aftermath of what happened in Mosul yesterday new security preparations or precautions are taking place in and around other U.S. military facilities in Iraq?

PENHAUL: Well, of course all the other U.S. military facilities around Iraq will have taken this to heart because it's not necessarily a new problem. We have been on U.S. military bases in the past, and when they know, for example, that there is the risk of an insurgent rocket or mortar attack, then they do stop troops using dining hall facilities, because typically these dining halls are soft-skinned buildings, either a thin metal or of canvas. And it's one of the few times anywhere on a U.S. military base that troops are allowed to mass in large numbers, in the hundreds, quite often.

They'll take off their flak jackets and their helmets, they'll lay their weapons on the ground. And so this is one of the most vulnerable times for soldiers. And, of course, meal times are predictable. Breakfast, lunch and dinner very predictable times.

So one would expect that U.S. military officers will be giving the orders to their troops not to congregate, perhaps to pick up their food and move on. What we have seen in Mosul specifically today, though, are that there have been sweeps through parts of the city and checks. Checks presumably for these insurgent cells that continue to carry out these attacks despite an ongoing offensive by coalition troops there in that city, the third largest city in Iraq -- Wolf.

BLITZER: CNN's Karl Penhaul reporting for us in Baghdad. Karl, thanks very much.

Let's head over to the Pentagon here in Washington. CNN's Kathleen Koch has been digging for some information there as well, as to the cause of this deadly explosion.

What are you hearing from your sources there, Kathleen?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, they are still looking at the three various options, a rocket, mortar, or indeed a bomb, such as Karl described. Increasing evidence of that what with this group on the Islamic Web site claiming responsibility, saying it was a suicide attack, and then these tiny metal perforations being found in the kitchen, the steel kitchen equipment in that tent.

But, you know, the Pentagon had been expecting that the insurgents throughout Iraq as the January 30 elections approached would try to mount just such deadly and dramatic attacks. And they had been doing more.

They have been putting more supplies in the air, fewer convoys on the road. And the convoys on the road have been taking -- changing their routes, varying them up so that they wouldn't be such predictable targets.

But again, when it comes to the bases and, say, their exposure, having Iraqis come on to the base, we are told that the U.S. military simply relies on many Iraqi force things like to serve as interpreters, janitorial work, to do construction work, and even to work in these very mess halls, cleaning and cooking. So, again, what we are hearing from those who are doing the investigating is that they are still looking at the three distinct possibilities: mortar, rocket or, again, a placed bomb.

BLITZER: Kathleen, there are other news organizations...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. THOMAS METZ, U.S. ARMY: .. in the -- in the field of munitions and explosive devices. We searched (ph) them up there, we flew them up there from here in Baghdad up to Mosul last night.

They do a very detailed explosive forensics investigation. And they will be able to tell us the type of weapon, the size of weapon, the -- all the parameters of the weapon as they do their investigation. But they are in the middle of that process now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: And it has been widely reported that the violence in the city of Mosul has been on the increase since the offensive on Falluja. A widespread belief that a lot of the insurgents who escaped from Falluja and fled in advance of that attack have set up camp in Mosul.

Now, the question being, could one of them have gained access to Camp Marez? A multinational forces spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, tells me that Iraqi workers who do work at these facilities have to show IDs in order to gain access to the base.

They are looked at. He said they are sometimes, with the emphasis on "sometimes," searched, bodily searched. But not always. And he says once they gain access to the base, they go on about their business, carrying out their jobs. And they are not always accompanied.

So, Wolf, that possibility of a bomb being placed certainly being looked at very carefully. But no -- no firm, firm decision on that yet.

Back to you. BLITZER: Kathleen, are we going to be hearing from the Pentagon brass today?

KOCH: Wolf, no word on that yet at this point. There's always the possibility that a briefing could be held, but nothing specific announced yet.

BLITZER: We will see if that happens. Other news organizations have been reporting that the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Richard Myers, will show up in the Pentagon briefing room later today. If they do, of course, we will have coverage of that.

Kathleen, thanks very much for that report.

Some of the soldiers who were wounded in Mosul will spend their Christmas in Germany. Late this morning a U.S. military transport plane arrived in a gentle snow at the massive American military base near Frankfurt.

CNN's Matthew Chance is joining us now, picking up that part of the story -- Matthew.

MATHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Wolf.

And in the bitter cold of southern Germany, we have been witnessing the painstaking transfer of between 40 and 50 of the injured from that Mosul incident from an aircraft here at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in southern Germany to ambulances and onward to the Landstuhl medical hospital, the biggest U.S. Army hospital outside the United States. Many of those injured on board the plane, which is behind me, have been taken off on stretchers. In fact, of the 50, only 13 were able to walk unassisted.

And so some of them extremely seriously injured. Eight people said to be in critical condition.

That means their injuries are so serious that they may be life- threatening and do require urgent medical attention from the specialist medical teams that are waiting for them at the Landstuhl medical facility. There, they will get the intensive care they need and the kind of specialist treatment to build up their strength so that they will be able to make the final leg of their journey back home to the United States.

Now, it's been extremely interesting to watch because there was a bit of a struggle to get the right medical teams on the ground because there was no battle under way in Iraq, there was no offensive under way, which meant that these casualties were somewhat unexpected. And because it's the holiday period, many people, many of the doctors and nurses and support staff, had been sent home to their families to be -- to be spending the sort of holiday period with them. They had to be called back in a hurry to make sure that these soldiers had the right medical teams in place when they arrived to get the treatment they needed -- Wolf. BLITZER: Any word form -- I don't know if you had a chance or if our people on the scene, Matthew, have had a chance to speak with any of these wounded soldiers who arrived at the Ramstein Air Base. Are they saying anything? Any eyewitness accounts of what they believe happened, the cause of the explosion in Mosul yesterday?

CHANCE: Well, this, of course, is the big question. And of course we are all pushing hard to speak to as many of these patients as we possibly can when they are fit to do so.

At the moment, we are working very much under the restrictions of the U.S. military. They're not permitting us at this stage even to show the faces of the injured who walked off or were carried off this aircraft behind me. They certainly at this stage not clearing any of those individuals to actually talk to the media.

But we'll be here for the next few days. We are pushing to speak to those eyewitnesses obviously to this devastating attack in Mosul, to perhaps try and bring us a bit more clarity about exactly what happened from their points of view. So, in short, no, we haven't had a chance to speak to them yet, but we are trying to do that.

BLITZER: All right. Matthew Chance on the scene for us at the Ramstein Air Base. And these wounded soldiers will be heading over to the Landstuhl hospital.

Let's go to our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. She's in Kuwait City. She has been gathering information from her vantage point on what she has heard, perhaps.

Barbara, do you have anything new on what may have caused this explosion?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, let me just clarify very quickly. Actually, right now at this hour, I am on board the Harry Truman aircraft carrier in the northern Persian Gulf.

We flew out to the carrier early this morning. We're having a trip through the region to look at the security situation for U.S. forces across this central command area.

But when we left Kuwait City very early this morning from a remote airfield there, it was a quiet, sad moment. As we were at the airfield, a C-130 aircraft from Iraq landed at the airfield. The back of the plane opened up, and an honor guard, two lines of troops, approached the rear of the plane and very quietly, very reverently began taking the body bags off the plane, the human remains from the attack in Mosul.

This was a very unique opportunity because, as you know, Wolf, there -- media is not allowed to cover or film the return of remains from the war. And indeed, we could not take our camera out. But we were given permission there to very quietly stand at a distance and watch this honor guard.

There was no one else at the airfield, and yet these troops gave these remains every honor. There was a quiet funeral salute as the body bags came off the plane as they were loaded into vehicles and then taken to another location on the Kuwait airfield for mortuary affairs, of course, before they make their final journey home back to the United States.

Out here in the Persian Gulf, this attack in Mosul is the topic of conversation amongst all the troops. The troops want to know what happened, how this attack happened. There is, at least, an inclination amongst the troops, Wolf, that it must have been a deliberate attack, something very -- pardon me -- well-planned, not just a lucky shot, if you will -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Barbara Starr. Barbara, thanks very much for that report.

Barbara is traveling through the region. She's on the aircraft carrier Harry Truman right now. We'll be checking back with her throughout the day.

Have a safe journey over there, Barbara. Appreciate your coverage.

Whatever device caused yesterday's explosion, it was one of the deadliest single attacks on U.S. forces since the invasion of Iraq some 20 months ago. Joining us now with some perspective, retired U.S. Army Colonel Pat Lang. He served over at the Pentagon as the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency's top Middle East analyst until he retired.

Thanks very much, Pat, once again for joining us.

COL. PAT LANG, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Sure.

BLITZER: It's speculative, there's an FBI forensics team on the scene. But what goes through your gut as you are piecing together all this fragmentary information?

LANG: Well, I'll tell you what I don't want to find out it was. I don't want to find out that someone was able to carry that much explosive through the various levels of personnel security in that camp in order to place it or carry it on their person in that mess hall to set it up. Because if that's true, then, in fact, our -- the security in that place and maybe in other places in Iraq is so bad that it amounts, in fact, to negligence. That should never happen, in fact.

BLITZER: So if it were a suicide bomber, with a knapsack, or whatever, and had the pellets and the ball bearings, which is a trademark of suicide bombers, if that were the case, if a suicide bomber with all those explosives could get through, that would be a bigger concern to you than if it was rocket that had been directed towards that mess hall?

LANG: Yes, absolutely. I mean, stand-off attacks by mortars and rocket fire are standard things you have to expect in an insurgency situation like this. All they need is the weapon, a modicum of information, knowledge, how -- the distance and the direction, and they can always shoot these things in at you. And most of the time they're not going to hit anything very significant.

They did this to us all the time in Vietnam. But if, on the other hand, in fact, they are able to walk through our security in this way and place a charge in the mess hall, then, in fact, you have to understand that the idea that there's just a handful of holdouts from the old regime who are doing this must be wrong.

There has to be a significant support base among the population, amongst the Sunni Arabs. And that's real bad.

BLITZER: You made the reference to Vietnam now. But I've heard a lot of analysts both in and out of government in recent days, especially yesterday and today, suggest to me that the analogy, the parallels to what happened to the U.S. forces in Lebanon in the early '80s, '81, '82, '83, that there may be greater parallels to what's happened -- what's happening in Iraq now to what happened to the United States forces in Lebanon.

LANG: Well, in a combat situation, I think there are a lot of parallels in some ways, both to Vietnam and Algeria. But at the political level, I think you're exactly correct.

In fact, in Lebanon, we, and the French as well, as you will recall, were lulled into thinking that this was a much more benevolent situation, that a great many more people were on our side than there actually were, and that you didn't need to be quite so hard-nosed about this. As result, when the Marines were attacked in their barracks by a suicide bomber in a truck, they didn't shoot this guy when they should have when he was far enough outside the perimeter.

And that -- and there's a similarity here, if, in fact, this is somebody who carried this bomb in. We can't be telling our troops that this is a benign environment, because it isn't.

BLITZER: And the notion of -- you know who was responsible for killing those 241 Marines in 1983...

LANG: I do.

BLITZER: ... at the barracks outside of Beirut. Who was responsible for that?

LANG: Well, ultimately, it was, in fact, the Iranian government, because what they did is they used the organization of Hezbollah, the Shia activist terrorist group in Lebanon, to recruit out of this a team of guys who worked for Iranian intelligence. And they used them to attack the Marine barracks as a part of Iranian foreign policy.

Now, the Iranians are certainly very active in Iraq. On the balance, I would say this right now is probably -- are probably Sunni guerrillas who are fighting the resistance because they are afraid they are going to be disenfranchised by the government.

BLITZER: But the broader lesson that they learned from that experience in Lebanon, in the United States it was the Reagan administration at that time, went in with grand ambitions, democracy, elections, a new government, bringing together the Christians, the Sunni Muslims, the Shiite Muslims, the Kurds in Lebanon. There would be a new Lebanon which would represent great hope for democracy throughout the region. That was the ambition, but shortly after those Marines were killed in that suicide truck attack the Reagan administration, President Reagan, then pulled out.

LANG: Well, a realization was come to in that situation, in fact, that we had probably bit off more than we could chew politically. And that the idea of restructuring Lebanon into a family of happy campers was probably not something we could achieve at any price we were willing to pay.

And in this case we've decided to reverse the social order in Iraq so that the Shia, who have always been looked upon by the Sunnis as a despised minority, are obviously going to be in charge. And to some extent, we made a similar kind of political creation here.

BLITZER: Is there good intelligence based on -- you spent your whole career on intelligence in the military, the civilian sector of the Pentagon. Do you think the United States at this point has good intelligence on the nature of this insurgency, who's behind it, how they operate, where they are, what's going on, the funding? Do you believe they have good information on this?

LANG: It has been gradually emerging over the last year as the professionals in military intelligence and the CIA have been allowed to develop networks of informants in these things. So now the information is actually pretty good, it's pretty well understood by the professionals. The question whether or not the command will accept that based on the guidance they've received from Washington as to how we want the future to be in Iraq is another question altogether.

BLITZER: Pat Lang, formerly of the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Thanks very much for joining us.

LANG: Sure.

BLITZER: Around the time that the wounded troops were arriving at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany -- in Germany, veterans and family members gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial here in Washington to offer some holiday wishes to the U.S. troops in Iraq. Here is a small sampling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "There are no words I could ever write to let you know what I feel in my heart for you all. You humble me with the sacrifices you have made. God bless you and keep you throughout eternity. And I hope all our guys come home, and our women."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "To all who have served or will serve, you will not be forgotten." I'd just like to add that I'm an OIF veteran. I'll be going back next week to finish the mission. And I want to extend my thoughts and prayers to my comrades who are over there now, and all the soldiers, especially the ones in Mosul yesterday, and pray that all our guys come home safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And we'll have more on the unstable situation in the region in the Middle East. That's coming up. The retired U.S. Army general, Wesley Clark, he's the former NATO supreme allied commander and former Democratic presidential candidate. He has just returned from the region. He will offer some broader perspective on what is going on when we come back.

Also, a bit later, just in time for Christmas, a winter blast for America's heartland.

You're watching the "News from CNN."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. The British prime minister, Tony Blair, is in Jerusalem today. He has been meeting with Israeli officials, Palestinian leaders.

CNN's John Vause standing by in Jerusalem with the latest on the effort trying to jump-start the peace process.

John, what's going on?

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Tony Blair has now met with both Palestinian and the Israeli authorities, the prime minister from Israel, Ariel Sharon, as well as the man who is likely to be the next president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. But before those meetings got under way, Tony Blair visited the grave of the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. And chances are, if Arafat were still alive today, then none of this would be happening now.

Mr. Blair is proposing an international summit next year in London which will focus solely on Palestinian reforms, reforming their political institutions, their economy, their security service as well. Now, the other big factor in all of this, Wolf, is Israel's plan to pull out Jewish settlers and troops from all of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

Mr. Blair says it is crucial that the Palestinians are ready to become a viable partner for peace the day after disengagement. Although the Palestinians were hoping for a lot more from that international summit. They wanted it to tackle the whole issue of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

They didn't get that, still putting a positive spin on in this international summit, saying they're hoping it can lead back to the stalled U.S.-backed roadmap peace plan. That is what Ariel Sharon was also saying, the Israeli prime minister, when he met with Tony Blair earlier today. But both Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and British Prime Minister Blair making it perfectly clear that there will be no negotiated peace here until there is an end to the terrorist attacks on Israelis -- Wolf.

BLITZER: John, is there a sense that these Palestinian elections on January 9, scheduled for January 9, that everything is in place, the easing of the roadblocks, the opportunity for Palestinians to show up at voting booths, the opportunity for international monitors to come in and make sure that everything is going along OK? Are all the elements falling into place?

VAUSE: Very much so, Wolf. The Israelis announced a few days ago that they are willing to pull out of Palestinian towns and cities the day before the elections, the day of the elections and the day after the elections.

As you mentioned, the monitors, the international monitors, will be here. But in many ways, this election seems like more of a formality, or a coronation, if you like.

It seems that Mahmoud Abbas is the one and only real candidate in all of this. So, while the elections are in place, everything looks like it will be set for a smooth run, it looks as though Mahmoud Abbas is the man who will simply walk away with this election January 9 -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And he's someone the Israelis certainly say they can deal with. The U.S. says they can deal with him. The British prime minister, Tony Blair, is in the region. So let's see what happens.

John Vause reporting for us from Jerusalem.

John, thanks very much. Good luck with the coverage coming up in connection with these elections.

We'll take a quick break. When we come back, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark. He's standing by. We'll get his thoughts on what's happening in Iraq and the region. He's just back from the region.

Stay with us.

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BLITZER: Will the war in Iraq affect the president's domestic agenda? We'll talk about that and more with my guests, Amy Goodman of democracynow.org and Pacifica Radio, and the syndicated columnist and radio talk show host, Armstrong Williams. They're standing by as well.

The "News from CNN" will return.

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BLITZER: You are looking at a live picture, a very happy picture from France. Two French journalists held hostage in Iraq since August, returning to their homeland, their country, France, this hour. These are live pictures. They're arriving at a military airport just outside Paris, barely 24 hours since being released. Their names, Christian Cheneau (ph) of Radio France International and George Mubreneau (ph), of "Le Figero (ph) newspaper. They were held in Iraq for four full months by a group that is known to have killed other hostages. French government said it made no concessions to gain their freedom, but the reason they were released isn't clear.

Congratulations to them. Very happy news for them.

Let's go to Little Rock, Arkansas. The former Democratic presidential candidate, the former NATO Supreme Allies commander, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark joining us.

Now you're just back from the region, General Clark.

Where were you, and what's your bottom-line assessment of what the mood is right now?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, I was in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, there's a lot of anti- American sentiment over there, a lot of anger at the way the war in Iraq is being conducted, the way it's going, blaming the United States for not dealing with the tribal situation, excessive use of violence and so forth, and there's a kind of a resigned sense of pessimism about what the outcome will be.

BLITZER: Well, what do they want the United States to do given the situation as it currently exists in the conversations you had, and all of those countries basically friendly. I think we can almost call them allies or supporters of the U.S. What do they want from the Bush administration right now, based on your conversations?

CLARK: Well, they're ambivalent about what they want. The real issue is the future of the Arab Gulf, as they call it, and Iran's pretensions for nuclear weapons. And whether the administration is going to be able to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and if it doesn't stop Iran, then what will be the consequences for them. They view Iraq as already lost in a sense that whatever emerges up there is going to be dominated by the Shiite community. It's only a question of how much violence. And they're concerned about the impact of the Shiite domination in conjunction with an Iran that's possibly equipped with nuclear weapons on what their security and their alignment will be in the future.

They're also concerned...

BLITZER: Do you think, General Clark, the United States should simply cut and run right now, pull out, declare mission over, and come home? Along the lines that we were talking earlier with Pat Lang, formerly of the DIA, and I asked him if there was a parallel to what happened in Beirut and Lebanon in the early '80s, when then-President Reagan, after the Marine barracks were blown up, shortly thereafter, they left.

CLARK: No, what we've got do, is we've got to stay engaged, we've got to keep our troop there. We've got to get through the election. We've got to try to help the Iraqis put together a government, help the Sunnis participate in it, and through our presence there work to ensure that Iraq stays together and mollifies whatever radical tendency may emerge from Iranian influences inside Iraq.

But the issue of Iran is a separate issue that the administration must be wrestling with now behind closed doors. We're not getting any visibility of it much here in the United States. There's a lot of concern about it that I detected in the Gulf.

BLITZER: Well, I'll get to Iran in a minute, but basically the strategy that you outlined from what the U.S. has to do now, given the situation as it currently exists, basically that sounds very much like what the Bush administration says it must do -- get these elections going, try to get a new government going, create a new constitution, try to bring as many groups into the process -- Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds -- as possible. It sounds very much like what the administration is trying to do.

CLARK: I think that's exactly right.

One thing I would add that the administration has not done yet, that I would like to see them do, is bring together a regional conference of Iran, Syria, Turkey, Kuwait, the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, all of the neighbors, and work with them to get them as much as possible in the boat to try and stabilize and Democratize Iraq. If the administration would do that, they would diffuse some of the hostility, because we know the insurgency is being fed through Syria, and to a lesser extent through Iran, and Saudi Arabia. We know that because of the concerns that these states have about the future of Iraq. So, we need to diffuse that outside support, and we can do that, I think, by using a little diplomacy. The administration hasn't done this yet.

BLITZER: From what I can hear you say, General Clark, it sounds like you have returned back to the United States deeply concerned about what is happening in Iran. Is that largely what you suspect is Iran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb?

CLARK: Well, I'm concerned -- yes, it is, Wolf. I'm concerned that, first, there is really no one in the region -- and these are people who are government officials and high-level business leaders -- who have contact with Iran all the time. Everybody believes Iran is going for a nuclear capability, and a weapon if they can get it. Why? Because it gives them a sense of security, and it will give them domination.

The impact of that is going to be to further radicalize the Saudis and put greater stress on the government in Saudi Arabia, and it's going to put greater pressure, obviously, on these Gulf states. And so they're very concerned about this, and what the United States might or might not do about it.

BLITZER: So what should the Bush administration be doing right now in your opinion?

CLARK: Well, I think we ought to be doing everything we can do diplomatically to forestall Iranian nuclear capabilities, and that means joining with our European partners in talking with the Iranians, looking not only for negative incentives, but some positive inducements to help them make the decision to give up on getting a nuclear capability.

BLITZER: The Iranians say they -- and I spoke to the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations this past Sunday, they say they're doing all that right now, that they've cooperated with the French, the Germans, the British, in terms of that initiative, that they're cooperating with Mohammed El-Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, they're not going forward with a nuclear bomb, and they insist that's that.

CLARK: Well, first of all, their cooperation is temporary, because they're still waiting for more results coming back from the Europeans.

But secondly, we're not sure who the Iranians represent that are doing the speaking. Do they represent the military? Do they represent the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps? Or do they just the represent the civil society in Iran? We're not sure that we got all the bases covered in there. And so there's a little bit of uncertainty about whether, in fact, the government of Iran's pledge means as much as it say it does. And there's also the fact that it's a temporary cessation of efforts to enrich uranium. And so nobody in the Gulf believes that this is the end of the story right now.

BLITZER: One final question, General Clark, before I let you go. What happened yesterday in Mosul and these large number of U.S. troops killed and injured. You served in Vietnam, you were injured in Vietnam. You know the kind of war that the U.S. forces and their allies are fighting in Iraq right now. What can -- what should the Pentagon leadership be doing right now to help strengthen their security?

CLARK: Well, obviously, they're going to have to go back and look at the security procedures at the camps, at every single camp. And if it was a planted bomb, then we know how to tighten up the security there and handle that. If it was an unerringly accurate shot by a rocket, then that's a different technical matter. But we know how to tighten up security. We'll just have to do that.

But I think the other thing that we've got to do is we've got to get our U.S. troops out and into the police stations and out into reinforce the Iraqi security forces. There's a little bit of that going on. A lot more needs to be done. We need to help those Iraqi security forces take up the burden of providing security and safety in the urban areas.

BLITZER: Do you want Donald Rumsfeld to resign as secretary of defense?

CLARK: Well, I've never called on that. You know, he's -- Secretary Rumsfeld's made some serious misjudgments. I think he's been disrespectful of the troops and frankly, I was shocked by what he said to the soldiers questioning about the lack of armor. I mean, that should have all been nailed down, it should have been corrected months and months and months ago. But ultimately, this is President Bush's policy. And Donald Rumsfeld is executing it.

BLITZER: Wesley Clark, retired U.S. army general. Thanks very much for joining us.

CLARK: Thank you.

BLITZER: We'll take a quick break. When we come back, our hot topics debate. Armstrong Williams, Amy Goodman. They're standing by. They disagree on almost everything. Stay with us.

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BLITZER: Welcome back to the news from CNN. The high cost of war hitting -- hit home today. Dozens of wounded American troops are now at a U.S. military hospital in Germany, while here at home prayers for those killed in yesterday's attack in Mosul continuing even as we speak right now.

Joining us now with their thoughts on what's going on, two guests. Radio talk show host and syndicated columnist, Armstrong Williams. And Amy Goodman, she's the host of the radio TV program "Democracy Now," joining us from New York. Thanks to both of you for joining us.

Armstrong Williams, it looks like this situation in Iraq continues to get worse and worse every day.

ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: It is worse. It's sad. It's reached an all-time low. I mean, what happened recently in Mosul was devastating, particularly to families who don't know whether it was their loved one and then there were many that were injured. It's a high cost for what we're trying to do in Iraq.

And obviously, this president and his military has to do something to protect our men and women who are serving there. But it's certainly not a reason to pull out. The United States have made a commitment. As General Wesley Clark just said, we must stay the course. Sad there will be many more lives lost, and I think it's all leading up to the elections, which we could have armageddon before it ever takes place.

BLITZER: Amy, you think the U.S. should cut and run or stay put?

AMY GOODMAN, HOST, "DEMOCRACY NOW": I mean, we're talking about a desperate situation right now. While the troops are in Iraq, they're not being protected, and then you had -- they said there were something like 30 attacks on this Mosul base, and yet still here are these people who were really -- the soldiers were sitting ducks in an open tent. It goes to the incompetence, not of the soldiers on the ground, but right up the chain of command, why they're not being protected, from national guard with their humvees not being protected right here, to the tent.

But it's much larger than this. I mean, the number of soldiers who've been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have now surpassed 1,500 wounded and injured. We're talking over 17,000 soldiers have been medevaced out, flown out of Iraq. It's not numbers the Pentagon talks about very much. But these solders are not being protected. And of course, the Iraqi people are dying.

BLITZER: In terms of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, it's over 1,300.

GOODMAN: But 1,500 in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Well, I think you'll agree, Amy -- maybe you won't -- that the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are different.

GOODMAN: I'm talking about the number of soldiers who have died. But I would say, yes, in Iraq it's over 1,300. And it is a very desperate situation, because as President Bush says, he is trying to bring democracy to the people of Iraq. I mean, just look at the example of Falluja. As we know from the Vietnam time, destroying the village in order to save it. The people seeing what has taken place there. Is this really helping the people of Iraq?

BLITZER: Armstrong, is that a fair comparison?

WILLIAMS: No, but it is a comparison -- you know, many people are angry and upset about this war because they still don't feel that we belong there. Obviously, President Bush was re-elected because the American people wanted him to complete this mission. I think the bull's eye is on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

I think the president is correct in keeping him on board, especially given these elections that are upon us, but something has to be done. I'm certainly not advocating that the president gives him an early retirement, because I think he's done a lot of good, but something has to be done because if this situation worsens, I don't know how much of an appetite the American people will have for this.

BLITZER: What's your recommendation, Amy? What do you think needs to be done in Iraq right now, given the situation as it currently stands?

GOODMAN: I mean, the United States should never have never invaded Iraq.

BLITZER: All right. We know. But what about now?

GOODMAN: And at this point, I think that the U.S. clearly -- U.S. soldiers on the ground are only a provocation at this point. Iraq needs to be in control of its own destiny. We need a world community that is not increasingly angered by the United States. A world community coming to help Iraq, led by...

BLITZER: So what should the U.S. do?

GOODMAN: ... Iraqis who are elected by the people of Iraq, not appointed, like people like Ayad Allawi, the unelected prime minister of Iraq.

BLITZER: So what do you want the U.S. to do? Let me ask you that again.

GOODMAN: I mean, the United States needs to leave Iraq. And the United States needs to leave Iraq now because the casualties are Iraqi and the casualties are U.S., but the U.S. on the ground in Iraq is only making matters worse.

BLITZER: You know, Armstrong, a lot of people out there, a lot of Americans agree with her. If you look at the public opinion polls, they're not sure it's worth it for more American soldiers to die for a mission whose purpose is unclear to them right now.

WILLIAMS: You know, I think the agenda of the United States and the purpose that we have in mind is certainly not the agenda of the people in Iraq. I think we underestimated these insurgents, I think the president finally acknowledged the kind of influence and the kind of power that they have there. We can talk about somebody having a backpack in Mosul that detonated, but it looks like a rocket that caused that kind of damage. .

BLITZER: We don't know what is was yet.

WILLIAMS: We just don't what it was. And I just think it's something that we have to examine. I'm -- as you know, I used to be gung-ho about this war, but as I continue to see the death toll and the fact that our men are sitting ducks, I mean, we have to examine our policies and we have come to the conclusions that are in the best interests of the United States in the long run.

GOODMAN: The American ...

BLITZER: So you're beginning to have serious doubts. Go ahead, Amy.

GOODMAN: The American people are coming to strong conclusions. The latest ABC News/"Washington Post" poll says 60 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with what Bush is doing in Iraq. The popularity of Rumsfeld has plummeted to 35 percent. And we can't say enough about how bad the situation is when it comes to U.S. soldiers, military contractors, CIA, Pentagon involved in the torture of prisoners.

WILLIAMS: There's something we forget that is equally important -- far too many Iraqis have lost their lives than Americans. They're paying the ultimate price. And there are many Iraqis, including Mr. Allawi and others, who want America there. They want them to stick by them. They do not want them to abandon the cause there. And to leave them in a situation like that, which is just the worst thing that we could do in our reputation abroad.

So it's a tough situation, because the president has some very tough decisions to make over the next few weeks.

GOODMAN: I mean that runs counter to what people are saying on the ground in Iraq. I mean, you're talking about a cross-section of Iraqi society that wants U.S. soldiers out. This is a very desperate situation. The figures at the Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Baghdad University study suggesting that more than 100,000 Iraqis have died with the invasion and occupation. You are talking about a population that may not agree on many points, but on the issue of the U.S. getting out, I think we are talking about most people, maybe not those chosen by the U.S. government, by the Bush administration, but by most Iraqis wanting the U.S. out.

BLITZER: Very quickly.

WILLIAMS: I think that's an unfair comment. I think there are many Iraqis, I mean, not just those in the leadership, that wants the United States to stay, but as they begin to see the toll that it's taking on their country, they begin to wonder if it's worth it in the long run.

BLITZER: All right. Armstrong Williams, Amy Goodman, good discussion. Thanks very much to both of you for joining us.

GOODMAN: Thank you, Wolf.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

BLITZER: And coming up at the top of the hour, more on yesterday's bombing in Mosul. Up next, a winter wonderland here in the American heartland. Will it make for a white Christmas, though? We'll tell you about that when the NEWS FROM CNN continues.

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BLITZER: Welcome back. Just in time for the holidays a monster winter storm is socking the Midwest.

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BLITZER: I'll be back later today, every weekday, 5:00 p.m. Eastern for "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS." We'll have more on the Mosul investigation, plus we'll also focus in on homeland security. More money for the nation's largest cities -- How much of a difference will it make? Admiral David Stone, the assistant secretary of homeland security, he'll join us live. Until then, thanks very much for watching the NEWS FROM CNN.

I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "LIVE FROM" with Kyra Phillips and Miles O'Brien -- there they are -- they're getting ready. They're standing by to join us next.

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